Mongolia Mongooses
The Mongolia Mongooses are a BDL team hailing from the country of Mongolia. They were formed prior to Season 1, and are one of the Original 4 Teams in the BDL. Although the Mongooses did not exist in the Trial Season, every member of the team in Season 1 was a former member of the Pucktards prior to the league reset. The Mongooses are nicknamed the "Geese", but have also been referred to as the "rodents" and "weasels". They dwell in the dark place that is the Van. Team Founding The Mongooses had the 3rd overall pick in the draft following the league reset. Like the other teams, they eventually picked five players in the draft. #A33 (3rd overall) #alexander27 (6th overall) #AvaholicReborn (11th overall) #Trunkins (14th overall) #barmishmar (19th overall) Season 1 With all six members of the Season 1 Mongooses being former chamions in the Trial Season with the Pucktards, it was no surprise that they got out to a strong start and won the Season 1 Championship Draft. Ironically, the only team they couldn't beat was the Pucktards, but they still cruised to a 4-2-0 record for 12 points. The season was a team effort for the Mongooses. GM Avaholic03 led the team in scoring with 72 points, but the key was consistency. Only one missed pick all season turned out to be the deciding factor. Unfortunately for the Mongooses, that one missed pick was AvaholicReborn in Week 6, which immediately preceeded his retirement from the BDL. NOTES: *- = missed pick Season 2 Season 2 marked a quick end to the Mongooses winning ways. GM Avaholic03 reacted to the loss of AvaholicReborn by signing rookies Colorado_Avs and drop_the_gloves. But they stumbled out of the gate and never got any momentum in the season. They continued their losing streak against the Pucktards, going 0-3-0-0 against the eventual Season 2 champions, and finished the season a dismal 2-7-0-0 for just 6 points. The lone bright spot for the Mongooses was the emergence of alexander27. His 118 points were good enough for 3rd in the league. The rest of the team struggled, culminating in a 5-game losing streak to finish the season. Season 2 also marked the beginning of the transition to the A33 era. Near the end of the season, Avaholic03 made plans to step down as GM and retire so that he could serve as Commissioner of the BDL and allow for invisible picks in Season 3. A33 was picked as the successor, and given control of the team for the remainder of the season. At the end of Season 2, A33 made his first move as GM, signing rookie free agent Nayefj to an entry level deal beginning in Season 3. NOTES: *(#) = benched pick Season 3 The Mongooses rebuilding officially began in Season 3. A33 had just taken over as GM, and set out to get an exciting young team that would improve in the future. In addition to newly-signed Nayefj, A33 started an aggressive recruitment campaign, and signed BloodyRomance before Week 2 began. He then saw an opportunity to land the veteran Rob_Avs33, who was at odds with the new Beeters management. Before Week 3, the Mongooses traded BloodyRomance for Rob_Avs33. But all these transactions didn't immedately pay off. The Mongooses struggled in Season 3, going 2-6-1-0. The lone bright spot was winning the Olympic Game, giving them an extra five points so they could finish at 13 points, good enough for 3rd place in the league. The Rob_Avs33 trade ended up paying off the Mongooses. He led the team in scoring, with 129 points. Sophomore, and newly minted assistant captain drop_the_gloves impressed everyone with 125 points. However, former assistant captain alexander27 struggled, putting up just 107 points and falling out of favor with management. It would eventually lead to him being traded before the expansion draft. NOTES: *(#) = benched pick *T = traded, pick that week did not count for the Mongooses *BloodyRomance was a free agent in Week 1 *Olympics did not count towards individual stats Expansion In many ways, Mongooses GM A33 is directly responsible for expansion. The aggressive recruitment campaign that began in Season 3 really took off when the Avalanche message boards transition back to the much preferred IPB software. A33 quickly recruited more than seven new players, in addition to a few that found the BDL on their own. However, this strategy ended up hurting the Mongooses more than helping. By time the expansion announcement was made, they had the largest roster, at eight players, and they could only protect four of them. After a quick trade that sent alexander27 to the Beeters in exchange for InNet, A33 chose to protect InNet along with Colorado_Avs and newly-signed sephiroth1 and kragok00. Two of their unprotected players were drafted. Barmishmar went 2nd overall to the Kripplers, who also picked up Sethro109 in the 3rd round. Anemic_Royaltea returned to the Mongooses after the draft, but A33 had used his compensatory pick (10th overall) to draft PHIN and decided to buy out Anemic_Royaltea's contract (who then signed with the Pucktards). The Mongooses entered Season 4 with a full roster, plus two extra players thanks to a last minute signing of BelfastSpartan. Season 4 Season 4 After the many moves through season 3, the off-season and the Expansion, the Mongoose finally seemed to be set for a Cup run. With InNet, and rookies Seph and PHiN (who turned down an offer to sign with the Inties) the Mongoose quickly gained the title of ‘most hated’ and won that poll by a landslide. However, A33 was not quite done shaping his team. With some cap room available, A33 signed R33i who was recruited by PHiN, and AlwaysCheddar who found the BDL all on his own. AlwaysCheddar then quickly made a name for himself and raised his ‘trade value’ enough to eventually land IceCold14 to the Mongoose. The Pucktards wouldn’t make the trade easy though, it also had to take veteran and team Captain, Colorado_Avs. The Mongoose who were currently unbeaten and on pace to break the BDL record for wins lost two important pieces, but gained the league’s all time leader in points and the leadership and experience they needed to finally complete the Championship team that ended up going 10-1-1-0 that season. The team that saw Klozge, Nayef, Alexander27, Colorado_Avs, Barmishmar, drop_the_gloves & Rob_Avs all go through the long harsh offseason, surprised everyone including the Commissioner’s ‘lowest score in the league’ prediction. The season’s only loss came to the Pineapples but only after the Mongoose had clinched the division. The Mongoose then went on cruise control all the way to the finals and faced the Cinderella story, Beeters and the +15 didn’t even come into play. The Mongoose completed the Championship the same way it began, with a bang! The season also saw A33 win best GM award, and Rookie of the Year, PHiN. Other Information *The nickname "Geese" came about during a humorous discussion about how to pluralize "Mongoose". Some people believed it should have been "Mongeese", and started calling them "Geese".